Odd reply. Address the Blues. Stop making it all about me.

False caricature and intellectual dishonesty will get you nowhere.

Question begging

So, can we agree then that to qualify as doing 'Eastern' philosophy or what have you, it's important that you 'not' be using reason to find out what's true? — Bartricks

No, but it is important that you not define philosophy so narrowly. There is no ‘qualification’ required. It’s a comparative term, not a classification. Mere adjectives that you’re using to try and dismiss the practice of exploring the human faculties of reason, imagination and feeling to determine a model of truth - without necessarily defining or stating WHAT is true - as NOT philosophy.

Just wait until you encounter a truly numinous event and your dreams are haunted. Then you'll wish you had some Jung-fu....

And I still don't have the faintest idea what [...] philosophy is. — Bartricks

Like a broken cuckoo, lil D-K, even you're right a couple of times a day. :up:

What makes you think I haven't already had at least one "truly numinous event" or that my dreams don't "haunt" me?

:victory:

It's not a narrow definition. It's what the word means. It usefully distinguishes one activity - using reason to find out what's true - from others.

Where's Peter? Oh, he's gone down the philosophy.

Broken pipe? Phone a philosopher.

I'm hungry and want something spicy. I know, I'll order a couple of philosophers.

See?

And I still don't have the faintest idea what Eastern, or Chinese, or African philosophy is. All I know from you is that Augustine - an undisputed giant of philosophy who was also undisputablyAfrican - isn't anything to do with African philosophy. Kinda ridiculous, no?

And I still don't have the faintest idea what Eastern, or Chinese, or African philosophy is. — Bartricks

Yep.

I personally like to think of philosophy in a broad manner. This makes me include novelists and musicians as providing provocative philosophical material — Manuel

:up: :up: :up:

Why not plumbers? They're philosophers too surely? And bakers. And candlestick makers. Hell, everyone is a philosopher.
Here's some philosophy for the forum to mull on:

Lalalala. Doobidoo. Woof woof woof.

To put out a manifesto you must want: ABC
to fulminate against 1, 2, 3
to fly into a rage and sharpen your wings to conquer and disseminate little abcs and big abcs, to
sign, shout, swear, to organize prose into a form of absolute and irrefutable evidence, to prove
your non plus ultra and maintain that novelty resembles life just as the latest-appearance of
some whore proves the essence of God. His existence was previously proved by the
accordion, the landscape, the wheedling word. To impose your ABC is a natural thing—
hence deplorable. Everybody does it in the form of crystalbluffmadonna, monetary system,
pharmaceutical product, or a bare leg advertising the ardent sterile spring. The love of
novelty is the cross of sympathy, demonstrates a naive je m'enfoutisme, it is a transitory,
positive sign without a cause. — Tzara

http://writing.upenn.edu/library/Tzara_Dada-Manifesto_1918.pdf

wooof.woof . woooooof.

Why can't a plumber philosophize?

Address the OP. And use your own words and not quotes from ghastly posturing nobodies.

Address the OP for christ's sake and use your own words and not quotes. — Bartricks

Saying that Western philosophy just is philosophy-in-general is misleading and perhaps arrogant or self-flattering. If you are just making the point (a good one) that philosophy is ideally an expression of universal rationality (for/of all humans), that's different.

What, then, is Philosophy? Philosophy is the supremely precious. Is Dialectic, then, the same as Philosophy? It is the precious part of Philosophy. We must not think of it as the mere tool of the metaphysician: Dialectic does not consist of bare theories and rules: it deals with verities; Existences are, as it were, Matter to it, or at least it proceeds methodically towards Existences, and possesses itself, at the one step, of the notions and of the realities. Untruth and sophism it knows, not directly, not of its own nature, but merely as something produced outside itself, something which it recognizes to be foreign to the verities laid up in itself; in the falsity presented to it, it perceives a clash with its own canon of truth. Dialectic, that is to say, has no knowledge of propositions ­ collections of words ­ but it knows the truth, and, in that knowledge, knows what the schools call their propositions: it knows above all, the operation of the soul, and, by virtue of this knowing, it knows, too, what is affirmed and what is denied, whether the denial is of what was asserted or of something else, and whether propositions agree or differ; all that is submitted to it, it attacks with the directness of sense-perception and it leaves petty precisions of process to what other science may care for such exercises — Plotinus

You do know that what he said is what I said, yes? (No, obviously).

So what is eastern philosophy?

I think it is b.s.

There are eastern philosophers, of course.

But they don't actually qualify as doing eastern philosophy, because they use reason to pursue the truth.

So what is it?

Once again, to be clear: philosophy is using reason to find out what's true. Nothing arrogant about it. It's humble. Why? Because you undertake to listen to reason not yourself.

What's 'eastern' philosophy? Is it anything that sounds a bit mystical and vague?

Nothing. I just found a thread to shoehorn that in because I found the idea of being haunted by Hume on a nightly basis both surreal and funny.

They can. But they're not doing plumbing by so doing, are they!! Blimey.

Me: plumbing isn't baking.

You: why can't a plumber bake a cake? Are you saying plumbers can't bake?

Me: Christ almighty!

I'm no expert on the Eastern stuff but I've dabbled and read some stuff I liked and respected. I found them to be universal. Eastern thought has been part of Western thought for a long time. Consider Schopenhauer for instance.

Schopenhauer held a profound respect for Indian philosophy;[96] although he loved Hindu texts, he was more interested in Buddhism,[97] which he came to regard as the best religion.[94] However, his studies on Hindu and Buddhist texts were constrained by the lack of adequate literature,[98] and the latter were mostly restricted to Early Buddhism. He also claimed that he formulated most of his ideas independently,[91] and only later realized the similarities with Buddhism.[99] — link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Schopenhauer#Education

I am none the wiser.

I don't have a clue what you mean by eastern philosophy. And I think you don't either

Me: plumbing isn't baking. — Bartricks

Even that's a little prejudicial in favor of armchair science, though, in favor of disembodied thought, mere talking, as if we weren't perhaps primarily skillful social animals. I say: don't assume some radical discontinuity between speech skill and other skills. It's an abstraction, good for some things and bad for others.

What are you on about? Literally what did any of that mean?

Don't use reason because we are social animals? Er, what?

I am non the wiser. — Bartricks

Here's another example.

The Ancient Greek philosopher Pyrrho accompanied Alexander the Great in his eastern campaigns, spending about 18 months in India. Pyrrho subsequently returned to Greece and founded Pyrrhonism, a philosophy with substantial similarities with Buddhism. The Greek biographer Diogenes Laërtius explained that Pyrrho's equanimity and detachment from the world were acquired in India.[120] Pyrrho was directly influenced by Buddhism in developing his philosophy, which is based on Pyrrho's interpretation of the Buddhist three marks of existence.[121] According to Edward Conze, Pyrrhonism can be compared to Buddhist philosophy, especially the Indian Madhyamika school.[122] The Pyrrhonists' goal of ataraxia (the state of being untroubled) is a soteriological goal similar to nirvana. The Pyrrhonists promoted suspending judgm ient (epoché) about dogma (beliefs about non-evident matters) as the way to reach ataraxia. This is similar to the Buddha's refusal to answer certain metaphysical questions which he saw as non-conductive to the path of Buddhist practice and Nagarjuna's "relinquishing of all views (drsti)". Adrian Kuzminski argues for direct influence between these two systems of thought. In Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism[123] According to Kuzminski, both philosophies argue against assenting to any dogmatic assertions about an ultimate metaphysical reality behind our sense impressions as a tactic to reach tranquility and both also make use of logical arguments against other philosophies in order to expose their contradictions.[123] — link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_philosophy

both philosophies argue against assenting to any dogmatic assertions about an ultimate metaphysical reality behind our sense impressions as a tactic to reach tranquility and both also make use of logical arguments against other philosophies in order to expose their contradictions.

This is a sophisticated expression of critical thinking, not unlike something in a very 'Western' Carnap.

Your own words please, not wikepedia entries.

Dude, I'm linking you to public examples. A critical thinker might prefer that to some anonymous claim on a forum. I'm not making an inference but simply drawing your attention to common knowledge. As far as that kind of philosophy goes (I'm something like a pragmatist/skeptic), if you really want my take on it, you can examine some of my old comments.

Here's another example.

The Ancient Greek philosopher Pyrrho accompanied Alexander the Great in his eastern campaigns, spending about 18 months in India. Pyrrho subsequently returned to Greece and founded Pyrrhonism, a philosophy with substantial similarities with Buddhism. The Greek biographer Diogenes Laërtius explained that Pyrrho's equanimity and detachment from the world were acquired in India.[120] Pyrrho was directly influenced by Buddhism in developing his philosophy, which is based on Pyrrho's interpretation of the Buddhist three marks of existence.[121] According to Edward Conze, Pyrrhonism can be compared to Buddhist philosophy, especially the Indian Madhyamika school.[122] The Pyrrhonists' goal of ataraxia (the state of being untroubled) is a soteriological goal similar to nirvana. The Pyrrhonists promoted suspending judgm ient (epoché) about dogma (beliefs about non-evident matters) as the way to reach ataraxia. This is similar to the Buddha's refusal to answer certain metaphysical questions which he saw as non-conductive to the path of Buddhist practice and Nagarjuna's "relinquishing of all views (drsti)". Adrian Kuzminski argues for direct influence between these two systems of thought. In Pyrrhonism: How the Ancient Greeks Reinvented Buddhism[123] According to Kuzminski, both philosophies argue against assenting to any dogmatic assertions about an ultimate metaphysical reality behind our sense impressions as a tactic to reach tranquility and both also make use of logical arguments against other philosophies in order to expose their contradictions.[123] — link

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_philosophy — j0e

Most of the time people focus on the link between scepticism and the east but scepticism also is linked to (pre-socratic) Greek philosophy; Pyrrho is linked to democritan philosophy through Metrodorus of Chios and Anaxarchus of Abdera.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrodorus_of_Chios
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaxarchus

Most of the time people focus on the link between scepticism and the east but scepticism also is linked to (pre-socratic) Greek philosophy; Pyrrho is linked to democritan philosophy through Metrodorus of Chios and Anaxarchus of Abdera. — Ying

Cool links. I like Democritus, Epicurus, Epictetus, Pyrrho, others. I don't know enough to argue for which influence is stronger. For me the main thing would be whether it's basically the same way of thinking, whether it's universal. I suspect it is, but I am cautious speaking about the Eastern stuff. I've found what I looked at to be universal, but that's a personal judgment.